Different Colors
by peroxidepest17
Summary: One makes the other brighter.


**Title:** Different Colors  
**Universe: ** XXXholic  
**Theme/Topic:** Airplane  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Yuuko, Doumeki, Watanuki, Himawarai (lightly DoumekixWatanuki if you want to see it)  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Probably OOC?  
**Word Count: **1,190  
**Summary:** One makes the other brighter.  
**Dedication:** sublimeparadigm's request!  
**A/N:** Yes, this references Saiyuki. IT IS SERIOUSLY ALL I COULD THINK OF. Sorry if it makes absolutely zero sense.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

He is immediately suspicious when she starts folding paper airplanes out of the brightly colored paper she'd had him buy earlier, on his way here from school. 

She must sense his wariness, because the corner of her mouth quirks upwards and she starts to hum to herself as she shapes the wings of the plane, as she straightens the nose to a perfect point.

He scowls to himself and thinks that it is rather unfair that she is sitting in the comfortable shade of the porch folding toys out of paper while he is out here in the sun slaving away, pulling weeds from the lawn. She of course, does not offer to help, and so he decides it is okay to take a short break. He straightens and stretches out the kinks in his back while he watches her.

"Why did you want orange paper?" he asks, as she finishes the first plane to her satisfaction. "What does it mean? What's it for?"

He imagines it's some sort of strange wish-spell or curse or worse, something he will have to take somewhere five or six train stops away to deliver, probably with stupid-Doumeki tagging along the entire time. Something will try to eat him on the way and he will end up having to make an extra big bento for the dumbass tomorrow at school.

Yuuko, as if reading his thoughts, just laughs at him. "Why orange? Ah, because it I can see it against the sky when it flies," she says simply, and flicks her wrist, releasing the paper plane on its maiden voyage.

Watanuki furrows his brow and watches it float along. "What?" he says, and does not get her meaning at all.

She smiles. "I knew a very wise man a long time ago, who liked orange paper planes. He said that because orange is so different from the blue sky and the green grass, doesn't it make them both seem brighter just by being placed against them?"

Watanuki wonders if Yuuko is already drunk. Probably not, she's only had one bottle.

She just arches a delicate brow at him, and before long, the plane comes to rest against the grass when it lands.

They both look at it for a moment, before Yuuko's cheerful voice breaks the silence. "Watanuki! Bring it back to me now!" she says, sweetly.

"I AM NOT A DOG," Watanuki shrieks, and promptly forgets about green grass and blue sky and orange planes in lieu of red wrath.

* * *

"Watanuki-kun and Doumeki-kun are really good friends, ne?" Himawari chirrups the next day at school.

It prompts Watanuki to scowl and say, "He and I are nothing alike!"

Doumeki just blinks and eats his bento. And half of Watanuki's too.

Himawari smiles. "I think that's the best part!" she tells Watanuki, with no bad-intentions.

He sighs.

* * *

That night, when they are trudging home from a particularly stressful errand that Yuuko had sent them on, Watanuki sighs and looks at Doumeki. "Maybe we shouldn't have killed him," he says, quietly.

The edges of Doumeki's eyes are hard. "He was trying to kill you," he replies. His logic is simple and his voice is gruff. For him, that is all there is to it.

Watanuki's mouth works for a while when he thinks about that, and while he supposes he can see it that way, he can also see it in another way too. "He didn't know who he was anymore. It wasn't his fault."

Doumeki pauses then, and looks at Watanuki like he is weighing those words against whatever burden is on his conscience. He is the one who had to deliver the final blow to the vengeful spirit they'd found tonight, after all.

A moment passes and eventually Doumeki sighs. Some of the roughness dies from his expression, replaced with weariness instead. "I did what I needed to do," he says.

"I know that!" Watanuki snaps. Then takes a breath, lowers his voice. "I just think that if we say a prayer for it…it would be nice." He doesn't know what else they can do.

Doumeki nods.

They close their eyes and Watanuki listens while Doumeki offers a chant for the spirit that had tried to destroy them tonight. Watanuki hopes that in his next life, the young man whose bitterness had turned him into a monster will get a chance to live fully for himself.

When they open their eyes again, Watanuki thinks Doumeki looks a little less burdened.

"Make me squid karage tomorrow," Doumeki says, even before his hands are completely lowered. "I like it a little spicy."

Watanuki glares at him and thinks that maybe Doumeki is a little _too_ unburdened now.

* * *

They find a dog that's been hit bit a car a week later. Watanuki frowns and frets and scoops the small animal up and takes it home. Doumeki follows quietly, and they are at Watanuki's place until late, watching, waiting, hoping.

The animal dies before morning and Watanuki is heartbroken.

"I'm sorry," he tells it as he covers it with a sheet. He acts as if he is the one who had killed it.

"I don't think it blames you," Doumeki observes after a moment, pragmatically.

Watanuki eyes him and doesn't say anything.

They take it to the yard and bury it together. Doumeki says a prayer.

"I should have taken it to a hospital," Watanuki murmurs, after they're done.

"Offer it some inarizushi tomorrow," Doumeki suggests, and those are the only words he has to offer.

Watanuki frowns. "It's always food with you, isn't it?"

Doumeki puts his hands in his pockets and starts heading for home. "Bring the extra for me."

Watanuki snorts and thinks that Doumeki's perspective is a little too simplistic sometimes.

In the morning he gets up and makes inarizushi to offer at the dog's grave.

He manages to smile, and then takes the extras to school with him.

* * *

Later that day, as he is watering the lawn while Yuuko sits in the shade of the porch folding brightly colored paper and drinking sake, he pauses to watch when she lets the first orange plane fly. It glides across the yard—brilliant against the blue sky—before coming to rest on the walkway beside Watanuki's feet.

"Lovely!" she delights, and is pink-cheeked and giggling from the alcohol.

Watanuki looks down at the airplane for a moment, before sighing. "It's not bad," he agrees after a while, and bends down to pick it up. He examines it. "Who was the man who told you about this in the first place anyway?"

Yuuko's lips quirk upward. "A monk, actually. I used to visit his temple quite often, when I had the time."

Watanuki shakes his head. "Well, I suppose that just figures."

He tosses the little aircraft back in her general direction. They watch it soar through the air and back into her hand. When she catches it, she grins and says, "I have a little errand I need you and Doumeki-kun to run for me tonight."

Watanuki rolls his eyes and doesn't say anything because _that _just figures too. He goes back to work.

**END**


End file.
